Wednesday, 8 June 2011

The review backlog has become increasingly large over the course of the last year, so I have decided to have a bit of a clearout. Today you have the pleasure of a Cadbury Superpost - featuring some bars that I have recently tried from all across the globe ... in the interest of post length I suggest we just get on with it :D

The Cadbury Boost Stix bar is one of the latest products to come out in Australia and essentially comprises of a standard UK Cadbury Boost split in to two smaller thinner 'Stix' pieces. I was a little confused by the branding given that the Boost bar in the Southern Hemipshere is usually called the Moro (!??), but that aside the packaging and presentation looked reasonable enough and struck me as attractive.

Taste wise there was very little variation from a standard Boost, with the real only point of difference coming in the scale and size. The Dairy Milk chocolate was noticeably a touch thinner in melt compared to our UK stuff, but it was still creamy tasting and led nicely into the surrounding layer of caramel and centre filling of chocolate truffle and biscuit pieces.

Overall this bar was fine for what it was, but I see little point for it unless you are someone who fancies their fill of Cadbury Boost in a more manageable sized portion. To be honest the only time I ever eat the normal Cadbury Boost is when I am in need of a very fulfilling chocolate to satisfy my hunger - so that sort of rules out the point of existence for me with this bar. Despite it's smaller size these Stix bars still deliver the Cadbury Boost taste experience, I just honestly don't see little point in paying the same amount for 5.0g less chocolate.

I'm not one-hundred percent sure about the intended brand positioning of the P.S. but from what I have ascertained it is probably targeted predominantly at female consumers given the colour scheme and suggestive 'You light up my life' blurb featured on the wrapper. Although I was hardly overwhelmed by the aesthetic proposition, the smell of the bar did excite me more, and the sweet, dairy based white chocolate scents did raise my anticipation to an extent.

The taste was what I can only describe as polarising in that was very sugary, but still on the whole quite pleasant with undertones and hints of toffee and golden syrup present throughout. Given the sharp directness of the sugary natured outer chocolate, the wafer was very much needed, as the more savoury wheat flavours offered by the wafer that balanced out the sweetness of the coating.

Overall it wasn't one of the better chocolate bars I have ever reviewed from Cadbury, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was to find out that out that it has quite a few loyal fans. The Caramilk chocolate that coats it is very distinct in terms of taste, and I can see people that love really sweet chocolate like Caramac, White Mice etc would very much enjoy this bar. Personally speaking it wasn't a product well matched to my tastes, it was nice enough, but I wouldn't actively encourage you actively seek it out.

Getting bars from Canada certainly isn't the easiest of thing to do, but after a little endeavour I did manage to lay hands on one of these Mr Big bars thanks to a ChocolateMission reader who wished to remain anonymous. This Mr Big Original is one of the Cadbury bars I have been eyeing up for a while now, as I have always thought the prospect of a Lion bar equivalent with added peanuts and vanilla creme sounded like an attractive prospect.

The first thing that struck me when I layed hands on this bar was how it really did live up to it's name. The 60.0g bar was literally huge in size - it was a real pain to photograph getting the entire wrapper in to focus. In relation to size this was probably about the size of a Mars Duo we have here in the UK, though annoyingly this bar wasn't split in two prior to me doing the cross-section you see above. As sizable as the bar was in hand, when it came to the taste test I felt it let itself down somewhat. The outer coating of chocolate, nuts and caramel all seemed to lack the usual Cadbury charm with the chocolate especially notable for it's sweetness as opposed to Cadbury's usual differentiated creamy taste. Similarly the peanuts and caramel struggled to create much of an impression against the wafer and inner creme elements, which both themselves mustered only brown sugar noted wheaty flavour suggestions that you would get from any average wafer based option.

Overall I did feel a little letdown by the overall quality of this bar given the promise it had in concept. As I described above, none of the key five constituents really took hold of the taste to the extent I wished - the chocolate and peanuts most notably faded in to the background with the generic tasting wafer acting more as a flavour dampener rather than an enhancer. I can't deny the Mr Big is a hunger satisfying option thanks to it's size, but I wont mislead you all by saying it's the tastiest Cadbury option available.

The Cadbury Cherry Ripe Cherry Roll was yet another new product launched in Australia earlier this year and has been doing the rounds in the Southern Hemisphere. Those of you who haven't ever seen the Cherry Ripe brand before want want to familiarise yourselves with my review of the original bar (See HERE), and also the Cherry Ripe Double Dipped which was another limited edition I tried in 2009 (See HERE). Essentially this Cherry Ripe Cherry Roll looked and sounded like the original bar, just with a few cosmetic changes.

Out of it's foil wrapper this bar was immediately more welcoming than I remember the original bar being. The shredded coconut on the side caused a heck of mess when handling, but it generated some a nice coconutty scents and gave the outer chocolate an additional crispness when first bitten in to. The outer chocolate was as expected not the greatest in terms of it's cocoa richness, but for the main part it was insignificant anyway as the inner assembly of cherry and coconut took the lionshare of the taste what with it establishing it's juicy red fruit and creamy nut experience.

Overall I really enjoyed this bar and felt that in many ways it was superior to the long standing original Cherry Ripe. That said if I were an Australian or New Zealander and this had been the biggest 'new launch' from Cadbury for the year I would probably had been disappointed with it given that it was essentially the normal Cherry Ripe with some minor improvements. Much the same as I have said about the other three bars today, this is more of a 'nice to have' bar rather than one I would say you need to go out there and look for.